In medical and health-related industries, the fear of contamination from contact with bodily fluids has become a concern to all. Medical personnel now routinely wear protective garments such as masks and latex gloves whenever they may come into contact with bodily fluids. Similarly, fear of contamination requires careful handling and disposal of all items that have been in contact with bodily fluids. For example, needles, syringes, scalpels, and bandages are all collected for sanitary disposal after use. Typically, sanitary disposal includes autoclaving prior to landfilling or high temperature incineration of such items to prevent accidental contact. Since there are over 3 billion syringes (not to mention scalpels) used in the United States every year, safe and economical disposal of these contaminated items is no small concern. Additionally, there are ever increasing Federal and State regulatory requirements for the tracking of waste materials including the use of proper packaging and transportation of such materials.
The safety precautions for handling these items after use but prior to final disposal have been less than optimum. After needles and syringe bodies were used to draw blood or make an injection, they were often disposed by being tossed into a plastic garbage bag or a trash receptacle. Obviously, this was unsafe as when the garbage bag was gathered for removal or the trash can was emptied, the sharps (needles) could easily puncture anyone handling the trash.
The Environmental Protection Agency is currently operating under a test act known as the Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988. This test act creates classifications of medical waste including sharps, such as needles, glass, scalpel blades and other discarded equipment in contact with bodily fluids and non-sharps, such as biological waste, discarded surgical materials (gauze), scalpel handles, syringe bodies and other waste deemed to be a health threat. The Act has the aim of protecting the public from exposure to waste materials. In addition, OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) now requires sharps containers to have rigid or semirigid walls to resist puncture therethrough by sharps. Since the containers are required to be located in close proximity to all locations where sharps are used, these containers are generally quite small to prevent waste of valuable space and to facilitate ease of handling. Thus, if the sharps are deposited in one of these small containers, the container will become filled quite rapidly. Therefore, the per unit cost of a small container with puncture resistant walls can become expensive for the disposal of medical instruments, as proper disposal generally requires costly land filling of or incineration of the container along with its contents.
One example of a device that is frequently used for the disposal of sharps is known as a WALL SAFE manufactured by Bemis, Inc. The WALL SAFE resembles a mail box in that a syringe needle and attached syringe body may be laid into a horizontal chamber exposed by lifting a handle. Once the syringe is in position, the handle is dropped and the syringe is deposited into the attached container. Thus, the device requires use of both hands in a two step process which is inconvenient. The WALL SAFE is relatively small and will hold only between 85-100 syringes, thus filling quite rapidly therefore is relatively expensive. In addition, the WALL SAFE is made from polypropylene which has a tendency to soften during the autoclave process allowing some of the sharps to penetrate therethrough.
A device for the separation and disposal of medical sharps and non-sharps is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,344 to Kelson et al. Kelson provides an electric device capable of removing and disposing of blood sampling needles from a test tube or syringe body. Once the needle is removed, it is dropped into a container upon which the electric removing device is positioned. The electric removing device of Kelson can be expensive and inconvenient as it obviously requires an electrical outlet. Additionally the Kelson device is designed to merely remove a needle from the syringe body and does not provide for disposal of the syringe body.
Another device for the disposal of medical appliances is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,452,358 to Simpson. In one embodiment of Simpson, a syringe needle may be bent, and the entire needle and attached syringe body may then be deposited therein for disposal. In an alternative embodiment, the needle may be removed from the syringe body and deposited into the container while the syringe body may be saved. Thus, in the first embodiment, the container will become rapidly filled due to the bulky syringe bodies. In the alternative embodiment the container will not become filled as rapidly only if all the syringe bodies are saved for reuse but still presents a small container which can be rapidly filled. Thus, there is a need for a system which provides for the safe, convenient and economical disposal of medical sharps and nonsharps.